Love and Other Words(25)

It wasn’t just that I got my period so much later than all my friends had, or even that Dad was struggling to relate to me, or that my mom was dead, or any of it. Or maybe it was all of it. I loved my dad more than anything, but he was so ill-equipped for some of this. Without a doubt, I knew he was downstairs, pacing, listening for the sound of my voice to know whether he had been right to let Elliot upstairs, or whether his instincts were all wrong.

“I’m okay,” I said, hoping I’d spoken loud enough for the words to reach downstairs. The last thing I wanted was both of them up here, worrying about me.

Frowning, Elliot took my face in his hands in a move that shocked me, and his eyes searched mine. “Please, tell me what’s wrong. Is it your dad? School?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it, Ell.” I pulled back a little, wiping my face. My fingers came away wet, explaining Elliot’s panic. I must have been really sobbing when he came in.

“We tell each other everything in here, remember?” Reluctantly he shifted back. “That’s the deal.”

“I don’t think you want to know this.”

He stared at me, unfazed. “I do want to know this.”

Tempted to call his bluff, I looked him dead in the eye and said, “I started my period.”

He blinked several times before straightening. Color spread from his neck to his cheekbones. “And you’re upset about it?”

“Not upset.” I bit my lip, thinking. “Relieved, mostly. And then I read a letter from my mom, and now I’m a little sad?”

He smiled. “That sounded an awful lot like a question.”

“It’s just that all your life you hear about periods.” Talking about this with Elliot was… actually, not that bad. “You wonder when it’s going to happen, what it will be like, if you’ll feel any different after. When your girlfriends get theirs, you’re like, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ It’s like a little biological time bomb sitting inside you.”

He bit his lip, trying to stifle an uncomfortable laugh. “Until now?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, do you? Feel any different?”

I shook my head. “Not really. Not like I thought I would, anyway. It sort of feels like something is trying to gnaw its way out of my stomach. And I’m a little testy.”

Elliot lifted the blanket and scooted next to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “I’m not going to be any help, but I think I’m supposed to be happy for you.”

“You’re being very mature and un-boy-like about this. I expected less compassion and more bumbling.” I grew light-headed from the warmth of his body and the feeling of his arm around me.

He exhaled a laugh into my hair. “I have a baby sister on the way, and a mom who insists it’s my job to show her the ropes, remember? So I need you to explain everything.”

I curled into his side, closing my eyes against the sting of tears I felt there.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked quietly.

A weight settled heavily in my chest. “Not unless you can bring my mom back.”

Silence pulsed around us and I heard him inhaling in preparation a few times before speaking. Finally, he settled on a simple “I wish I could.”

I nodded against him, breathing in the sharp smell of his deodorant, the lingering smell of his boy-sweat, the wet-cotton smell of his T-shirt from the fifteen-foot run through the summer rain from his porch to mine. So weird that just hearing him say that made me feel a million times better.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he whispered.

“No.”

His hand made the gentle path up and down my arm. I knew, without having to look too far and wide, that there were no other boys like Elliot, anywhere.

“I’m sorry you’re grumpy.”

“Me too.”

“Do you want me to get a warm water bottle? I do that for my mom.”

I shook my head. I wanted Mom to be here, reading her letter to me.

He cleared his throat, asking quietly, “Because it would make it feel like I’m your boyfriend?”

I swallowed, and the mood shifted in an instant. Boyfriend didn’t seem to cover it. Elliot was kind of my Everyfriend. “I guess?”

He sat up, still all skinny arms and long twisty legs, but he was becoming something new, something more… man than boy. At nearly fifteen, he had an Adam’s apple and faint stubble on his chin, and his pants were too short. His voice had deepened. “I guess we’re too young for that.”

I nodded and tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry. “Yeah.”

now

friday, october 6

E

arly-morning light filters in through the gauzy curtains, turning everything faintly blue. Outside on Elsie Street, garbage trucks rumble down the asphalt. The squealing of metal on metal, the crash of the bins against the truck, and the sound of garbage cascading into the compactor carries up from outside. Despite the way the world continues to move forward on the other side of the window, I’m not sure I’m ready to start the day.

My ears still ring with snippets of conversation from dinner last night. I want to hold on to them for just a little longer, to relish the joy of having my best friend back in my life before all the complications that come along with it make their way to the surface.